


they fuck you up, your mom and dad

by millepertuis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family Dynamics, Gen, Pre-Canon, Warning: Argents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millepertuis/pseuds/millepertuis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Allison Argent loves her parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they fuck you up, your mom and dad

**Author's Note:**

> For superkappa's prompt at [stainofmylove](http://stainofmylove.livejournal.com/218281.html?thread=5563817#t5563817)'s meme.  
> Title from Philip Larkin's poem _This Be The Verse_.

i.

This week Allison’s decided she wants to become a ballerina. She spends the day clumsily trying to spin on one foot, and at dinner she tells her parents she wants to take ballet lessons.

“No,” her mother says simply, and asks her to pass her the salt. Allison passes the salt. She doesn’t throw a tantrum or cry or anything. She’s a big girl now. She’s four and a half, and tantrums are definitely for babies. She understands her mom and dad know best.

“What about gymnastics?” her dad offers her, and it’s not exactly what she wanted, but that’s okay.

 

 

ii.

“Okay, what do you do?”

“I call you.”

“We’re already dead. You can see our brain matter on the floor. Next.”

Whenever she invites friends over to study, they always seem to think her family’s super strict, but that’s not true at all. They expect a lot of her, yes, but not more than she expects of herself. She loves her parents. They’re always there for her, making her take self-defence classes so she can take care of herself, and they have fun games, too—like, her dad’s favourite is to think about what she would do if there was a zombie apocalypse.

“Well, I take them out from a window with my bow and arrows.”

“What if you don’t have enough arrows? And remember, you get bitten and it’s all over.” It’s really fun, and it’s nice to know that her dad takes the time to make up all these scenarios just to play with her.

“That’s easy. I know where you keep the guns.”

“What if you’re not home?”

“I find kitchen knives? That can’t be all that different than shooting an arrow, right?”

“Let’s try it, then.”

And he teaches her how to throw knives. She’s lucky they’ve been playing darts a lot lately; she thinks it really helps, even if the weight and shape are different.

Really, her parents are the coolest.

 

 

iii.

If Allison has bruises on her cheek, it’s only because the arrow she was practicing with was old and snapped when she bent it a little too hard. But she sprained her ankle last week doing her gymnastic routine, and it must have sent a red flag somewhere, because she’s pulled in the middle of her English class to sit with the guidance counsellor. She asks her how she’s doing, if she’s fitting in fine, if she’s made friends yet, if she likes it here, and Allison smiles a lot even if it hurts a little and says yes each time. She eventually brings up the bruises, and cautiously asks if her parents have ever hurt her.

“They’ve never hit me,” Allison answers easily. The counsellor is young and she has a baby at home that still doesn’t sleep through the night.

When Allison explains how she got hurt, she simply nods, tells her her door is always open if she ever needs anything, and moves on.

 

 

iv.

Her class is doing a debate on euthanasia, and Allison is prepping in the kitchen while her mom is cooking.

“I’m obviously for,” Mom says when she asks her opinion. “If I ever fall ill with a debilitating disease with no chance of ever getting better, I certainly won’t allow myself to lose my mind and my sense of self.”

“But what about Dad and me?”

“You’re still young, Allison, and I know you don’t understand yet, but I wouldn’t be me anymore. It would be merciful to let me go, rather than to let me become the very thing I’ve—someone you wouldn’t recognize.”

 

 

v.

Aunt Kate surprised her by coming to pick her up from school. They hug and laugh and talk about boys—her mother, in the passenger seat, gives her the “don’t get attached” look. It’s a familiar one. Her parents used to sit her down every time they moved to tell her it was okay to make friends and take on hobbies and that she had to behave normally and maintain good grades, but that it was temporary and that she shouldn’t get too attached to people and things they would leave behind. With the years, it became just this look that Allison would get when she talked about her photography class or the cute boy seating next to her in Social Studies, to remind her, _it’s temporary_.

She sees the ambulances and the fire trucks before she sees the house, dark and obviously burned down. The car stops at a red light, and Allison looks back to see body bags being carried out of the house.

“What do you think happened?” she asks curiously.

“Oh,” says Kate, “I’m sure it was an accident.”

 

 

vi.

She still keeps the medallion Kate gave her.

 


End file.
